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Destiny, oh Destiny. For years it was positioned to be the next big thing in shooters, in video games period. It was the next huge franchise from Bungie, the people who made freakin’ Halo. To fulfill its ambitions, the team gained not only its independence from Microsoft but a rumored half a billion dollars and who knows how many years in development from new publisher Activision. And yet, while the game had its fans, when Destiny finally arrived in 2014, it’s safe to say the results were… mixed.

Ever since then, the overriding narrative of Destiny has been wondering what Bungie would do next to keep improving the game after the fact. The foundation was solid enough. Destiny features some of the most superb feeling first-person shooter controls ever conceived. The sheer act of playing through PvE Raids or PvP Crucible matches was a joy for the hands. There just wasn’t enough meaningful variety in the content to occupy to mind, yet. So maybe if fans were patient the rest of the game would eventually catch up.

And it kind of did. I’ll admit right now I’m biased because I’ve never enjoyed Destiny. I find its importance completely unearned, and I just don’t gravitate towards shooters that require other online people to be fun. But following the game’s initial rocky release hardcore fans and curious casuals alike seemed to genuinely enjoy both small bits of new content like MMO-style live events as well as substantial expansion packs like The Taken King. The game was on the right path, so while maybe there was only so much that could be done to fix the original Destiny, surely a sequel would knock it out of the park. Right?

Destiny 2 launched in 2017, and again you should be aware of my bias against the franchise, but here’s how things roughly went down from my perspective. The shooting was as fantastic as ever. The game looked gorgeous, especially on PC at 4K and 60FPS. The single-player campaign almost felt like an actual single-player campaign from a real video game with interesting alien enemy encounters, and not just a bunch of generic missions strung together with lifeless Peter Dinklage dialogue. Players even seemed to accept the hard reset that prevented you from bringing any of your hard-earned gear from the first game. Destiny 2 was the modestly successful sequel to what Destiny actually was, not the ambitious attempt at greatness Destiny tried but failed to be.

And yet, what’s the state of Destiny 2 now? It was a financial success, for a time the best-selling game of the year. But do people still like it? Do they even still talk about it? Once again, I’m not the best source on this, but the general vibe I and others I’ve talked to in the industry feel around this game ranges from apathetic to negative. Previously engaged players are now falling off. The ones that remain complain about microtransactions and obfuscated throttling of XP rates, making it slower and tougher to grind and obtain the loot that’s the whole point of the game. If Destiny launched weak but got stronger, Destiny 2 launched stronger but just kind of petered out.

Of course, as history has taught us, you can never count on Destiny to be a complete success or a complete failure at any given time. It’s constantly riding the line, which is why the fans exhibit such Stockholm Syndrome-style resentment mixed love for their captors. And if Destiny2 is going to shoot back up anytime soon, it will be this week with the launch of its Warmind DLC, the second expansion after Curse of Osiris. But as the shooter market becomes increasingly dominated by the Battle Royale genre, we’re left wondering how much further Destiny, a platform once planned to last a full decade, will ultimately go.